“Okay,” George Biondi was saying, “here’s an easy one, Henry. Henry? You there, Henry? Earth to Henry, Earth people need you. Come in, Henry. I say again: come in, H—”

“I’m here, I’m here,” Henry said. His voice was the slurry, muddy voice of a man who is still asleep telling his wife he’s awake so she’ll leave him alone for another five minutes.

“Okay. The category is Arts and Entertainment. The question is . . . Henry? Don’t you fuckin nod off on me, asshole!”

“I’m not!” Henry cried back querulously.

“Okay. The question is, ‘What enormously popular novel by William Peter Blatty, set in the posh Washington D.C. suburb of Georgetown, concerned the demonic possession of a young girl?’ ”

“Johnny Cash,” Henry replied.

“Jesus Christ!” Tricks Postino yelled. “That’s what you say to everythin! Johnny Cash, that’s what you say to fuckin everythin!”

“Johnny Cash is everything,” Henry replied gravely, and there was a moment of silence palpable in its considering surprise . . . then a gravelly burst of laughter not just from the men in the room with Henry but the two other “gentlemen” sitting in the storage room.

“You want me to shut the door, Mr. Balazar?” ’Cimi asked quietly.

“No, that’s fine,” Balazar said. He was second-generation Sicilian, but there was no trace of accent in his speech, nor was it the speech of a man whose only education had been in the streets. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the business, he had finished high school. Had in fact done more: for two years he had gone to business school—NYU. His voice, like his business methods, was quiet and cultured and American, and this made his physical aspect as deceiving as Jack Andolini’s. People hearing his clear, unaccented American voice for the first time almost always looked dazed, as if hearing a particularly good piece of ventriloquism. He looked like a farmer or innkeeper or small-time mafioso who had been successful more by virtue of being at the right place at the right time than because of any brains. He looked like what the wiseguys of a previous generation had called a “Mustache Pete.” He was a fat man who dressed like a peasant. This evening he wore a plain white cotton shirt open at the throat (there were spreading sweat-stains beneath the arms) and plain gray twill pants. On his fat sockless feet were brown loafers, so old they were more like slippers than shoes. Blue and purple varicose veins squirmed on his ankles.

’Cimi and Claudio watched him, fascinated.

In the old days they called him Il Roche—The Rock. Some of the old-timers still did. Always in the right-hand top drawer of his desk, where other businessmen might keep pads, pens, paper-clips, things of that sort, Enrico Balazar kept three decks of cards. He did not play games with them, however.

He built with them.